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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28026384">Fade to black</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/do_androids_dream/pseuds/redDwarf'>redDwarf (do_androids_dream)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Gen, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Modern AU, One Shot, PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Psychological Trauma, Short One Shot, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:42:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,775</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28026384</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/do_androids_dream/pseuds/redDwarf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier has been trying to get through to Geralt with his music for a few weeks now, and slowly it seems to have an effect. But the deep inner wounds of this extremely silent patient seem to break open once again in one night - with severe consequences for Jaskier...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia &amp; Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fade to black</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/dibsonsmth/gifts">dibsonsmth</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please excuse my little excursion into the Geraskier world. This little scene was created based on an idea from <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/dibsonsmth">@dibsonsmth</a> and wouldn't leave me until I wrote it down. If anybody actually likes this, I have another very cheesy <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27934618">Geraskier fic here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The attack comes unexpectedly.<br/>
<br/>
Jaskier, knees drawn up, sits in the only armchair in the room and looks - a bit astonished, a bit proud - at the man in the bed in front of him. Geralt's features are relaxed in sleep; for the first time since he has known him, his muscles are not tense, he does not appear to be ready for flight.<br/>
<br/>
Jaskier had been surprised when they had called him in, but strangely enough, he had not hesitated for a moment. Despite the thought that he was not trained for such things. He was a <em>musician</em>, nothing more, and his music brought joy to the people here. As it turned out, even to Geralt, that strange, taciturn guy. An unsettled audience, hard to crack; with problems, Jaskier didn't even suspect the tip of.<br/>
But it was fascinating: his music, probably his whole presence (at least that was a pleasant thought) had at some point begun to make Geralt.... calm down. To speak of loosening up was perhaps too early, but particular progress could not be denied. They said that Geralt had not made any contacts; his conversations did not go beyond the most necessary. With Jaskier, the man had not exchanged two words; though he occasionally hummed in reply lately, which was somehow sad and encouraging at the same time.<br/>
<br/>
Then came the call.<br/>
<br/>
"It's bad tonight," they had said. And it <em>was</em> bad: Geralt paced up and down the room with a look like a caged tiger. A strange restlessness had taken possession of him, different from his usual distrust and caginess. Jaskier had come, and when he saw Geralt like this, he feared that this thin bond they had already forged was lost. Geralt did not respond to him at first, neither to his gentle words nor to a soft melody he elicited from his instrument's strings. But he had not given up. Jaskier had sat down in the armchair, singing and playing as if there was simply no one in the room. As if there was no one there to hear him. As if he was playing for himself alone.</p><p>Eventually, it had worked. Jaskier liked to imagine that melodies had the power to reach people in a special way, and here was proof once again. Music was more than mere vibrations, yet it was almost visible how these vibrations gradually reached Geralt.<br/>
As if something had touched him, actually <em>physically</em> touched him, he had at some point given up his restless pacing. His movements had become calmer; his fingers, which had alternately clenched into fists or dug into his own thighs, had gradually relaxed.<br/>
Jaskier had looked fascinated at these fingers. As an artist, hands interested him as much as faces, and these were the hands of someone who was used to get down to it. To tackle things. That was the impression Jaskier had, and he thought that somewhere in the corner of his mind, Geralt must be having a hard time being there. Living there, haunted by something inside himself, unable to interrupt a spiral that was pulling him incessantly deeper.<br/>
<br/>
But it’s these hands that now wrap around Jaskier's throat, squeezing mercilessly.<br/>
<br/>
At some point, the music had stopped, Geralt had fallen asleep, and his peaceful face had given no hint that he had been so restless before. It was interesting to see him like that. During the day, his permanently tense jaw muscles always gave him a hard appearance. And his eyes... Geralt's eyes were somehow strange, although he rarely directed his gaze specifically at a person, preferring to avoid, not to look at anyone. Everything about him said to stay away. <em>Don't come too close to me</em>. Until Jaskier and his music showed up. His voice. Perhaps something about it awakened memories in Geralt that were deeper and more pleasant than what had brought him to this place.<br/>
He had fallen asleep even though Jaskier was still in the room. At some point, he had laid down on the bed, still in his everyday clothes, stared at the ceiling, listened, and gradually relaxed his muscles. Finally, he had closed his eyes, but it had taken at least half an hour before Jaskier had dared to stop singing and playing. Half an hour until Geralt's breaths had become steady and calm.</p><p>Jaskier had been sitting there, watching, gripped by a strange feeling. Then something had happened. Had he made any sound, just a clearing of his throat, a rustling movement as he tried to move his cramped limbs? Jaskier had gotten up, determined to leave, for Geralt was asleep, and he felt strangely like an intruder. As if he had no right to stand here and watch a more or less stranger in his sleep. But whatever it had been, Geralt had abruptly opened his eyes, sat up with a jerk. Jaskier had stopped, undecided, surprised. The moment had been enough. Geralt had jumped up, like an animal on the move, his gaze unfocused, as if he hadn't recognized Jaskier at all. His hands shot forward, wrapped around Jaskier's neck, squeezing with a force that foreshadowed what was inside this wiry, sinewy, but vigorous body.<br/>
<br/>
Geralt squeezes, pushing Jaskier against the wall next to the bed in one violent movement. Pinned him there. He makes no sound. Jaskier desperately reaches for these hands around his neck, trying to catch Geralt's gaze.<br/>
"Geralt," he gasps, "let go, please let go, it's me."<br/>
He can barely get enough breath for these words, and the grip does not slacken for a moment in its insistence.<br/>
With his hair disheveled from sleep and a blank stare, Geralt now seems less like a frightened animal, more like a sleepwalker. But if this is some kind of trance, sooner or later, it is fatal, for he continues to squeeze mercilessly. Something in him seems to cry "danger," and a subconscious part of him has only one solution for that.<br/>
<em>Danger must be eliminated,</em> Jaskier thinks fleetingly. What the hell had this man experienced?<br/>
<br/>
He tries again to say something, to reach him somehow with his voice. His voice, which had calmed Geralt, in the last days and especially today; but today, something is different, much worse, and now it breaks its way. Moreover, only a croak comes from Jaskier’s throat. His whole body is pressed against the wall by an unimaginable force.<br/>
Jaskier's heart is beating far too fast as if desperately trying to restore order to his body, but his lungs are screaming for air. Desperately, his fingers claw at Geralt's hands, yet unsuccessfully. He doesn’t have the strength to break that grip, and his vision begins to blur. He lets go; his hands are now rowing in the air, hitting the wall, looking for support, for something to hold onto.<br/>
His fingers feel something, and the last remnants of his mind, which already seems to be blackening, remember the alarm button. It is actually meant for the patients, a kind of panic emergency call. And it is panic that fills Jaskier, and his fingers continue to grope for the piece of plastic, trying to grasp it, while his last breath escapes him in a whistling sound. He pushes with the last of his strength, but nothing happens, and Jaskier feels his legs soften and his mind blur.<br/>
<br/>
He is indeed very, very close to losing consciousness, but suddenly - maybe only seconds have passed, maybe minutes, it no longer matters - the hands detach from his throat. Jaskier gasps, coughs, slids down the wall, exhausted, onto his knees, and he realizes fleetingly that Geralt is being grabbed by orderlies who somehow managed to break through his iron grip.<br/>
For a moment, Jaskier just kneels on the ground, breathing, sucking in the air like someone who almost drowned. Then he looks up. The men had forced Geralt onto the bed, one of them half kneeling on him; they forcibly press his arms to his sides and begin to restrain him.<br/>
<br/>
Jaskier stands up sluggishly, propping himself against the wall, rubbing his throat.<br/>
"Don't," he hears himself croak, clears his throat, tries again. "Don't do that, please. He didn't do anything wrong."<br/>
One of the orderlies looks at him with a hard, somehow knowing look.<br/>
"He almost killed you," he replies, as he forces Geralt's left hand into a leather cuff that will shackle him to the bed. His colleague does the same on the other side.<br/>
"This is for his own safety."<br/>
Perhaps that is true, but Geralt has long since stopped resisting, Jaskier notes.<br/>
"He wasn't even conscious," he says.<br/>
"They often aren't," grumbles the other orderly. "That's why we have to protect them. From themselves and from others."<br/>
Jaskier doesn't understand any of this, but everything about it seems brutal and wrong to him - the men forcibly restrain Geralt and tie him to the bed, even though they may be right in what they say.</p><p>But Geralt has stopped lashing out, as he had done after the men had come in. He no longer struggles, and a moment later, Jaskier realizes that he is back to his senses. That he <em>understands</em>. Geralt turns his head, looks at the wall where Jaskier still stands, and now he is looking at him. He’s looking directly at him, and a shiver is running down Jaskier's spine. Not because he is afraid - oh, he <em>has</em> been quite scared, but that is over. He sees Geralt's gaze, and it pierces him to the core.<br/>
<br/>
Geralt looks at him, and in his gaze lies the certainty that he understands what he has done. In his gaze lies anger - at himself - and shame, fear, and a sadness that touches Jaskier more than anything else. Jaskier wonders if that one moment has destroyed everything they have built over the past few weeks. Their strange bond, is it now a thing of the past?<br/>
Geralt seems to think so, that too is in his gaze. The realization, the shame, the anger, and the sadness hit Jaskier deeply. Then a doctor rushes into the room, a syringe already drawn up in his hand. No one listens to Jaskier's protests, the syringe finds its way into Geralt's arm, and all that remains is for him to return the look and try to put some confidence into it. For Geralt continues to look at him as he had never done before, seeming to seek his gaze. He looks at him, and Jaskier looks back, with a deep desire to look right into the man's soul. He returns the gaze until the injection does its work, until Geralt's eyelids flutter and finally close.</p>
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